I’ve had a couple of people reach out to me recently about suspensions, and something about this process has started to bother me. I told them, I’m not staff I’m just a podcaster.
When someone’s suspension ends, Pokémon GO automatically gives them access back. Wayfarer doesn’t always do the same thing. Sometimes the person has to come here, publicly say they were suspended, and ask for someone to restore their Wayfarer access.
Why?
I’m not arguing about whether someone deserved their suspension. That’s a completely different conversation. If you broke the rules and got suspended, you serve your suspension.
But once it’s over, it’s over.
Why should someone have to come onto a public forum and basically announce, “Hey everyone, I was suspended and I need my account unlocked”?
We all know people who have been suspended don’t exactly get a warm welcome around here. And maybe some of that is deserved. But I still don’t think someone should have to publicly disclose their suspension and open themselves up to judgment or embarrassment just to get access back.
If Pokémon GO can automatically restore access, why can’t Wayfarer?
And if there’s some technical reason it has to be done manually, that’s fine. Give them a private way to do it.
The suspension is the punishment. Having to publicly announce it shouldn’t be part of the punishment.
Am I missing something here? Why can’t this be handled privately?
Suspended users can not use help chat as this requires accessing Wayfarer.
The request can also be done by sending to the ban appeal form or whatever other form that links to Wayfarer support.
It also is possible for people to come to the forum and ask for staff to reach out about account issues. It’s not needed to reveal the exact issue is regaining access after being banned.
But of course, there are no resources saying all these things except comments on the forum like this one. Which is the root of the problem, if the access restoration will still remain a manual process.
I don’t remember a time when people were mocked or anything when they came here to regain access, but that they were rather instructed and invited to learn how they can better their situations.
Is saying the forum is unfit for welcoming back penalised users based on a post I missed, or some sentiment not shared visibly here?
I don’t believe that users have to ask on the forum to have their suspensions lifted. I believe they can ask through Contact Us — Wayfarer Help Center
I think it would be great if a new onboarding popped up at the end of a suspension that they had to complete to regain access. Maybe they would take it more seriously on seeing it a second time.
If I don’t progress the ticket, it just resets eventually. If I need to use help chat before it resets, I just explain that I clicked on the wrong menu option and can’t go back, then give them the information. Humans can figure it out if you just explain.
I have never seen anybody not get anything but a warm welcome when asking for re-reinstatement but I do agree that it should be automated, if this is not feasible than maybe an email is sent when it expires that states “Your Wayfarer account will need to be manually re-instated, please reply to this email”.
The question we should be asking is how many get the game account back but not Wayfarer and just think “forget it”.
Maybe Wayfarers view is those that want to return and will learn from their error will jump a few hoops, those that won’t learn we can do without?
Yes, it would make more sense then having an open tickets taking up time on the system just to have to have it reviewed, 2 or 3 replies sent back and then have it ended.
Normally you have the end conversation after someone replies, it’s a pity it isn’t there all the time. Once or twice I have asked a question only to find the answer elsewhere before someone gets back to me. It was a waste of their time having to reply when I could have just cancelled/ended the conversation myself.
